


Catharsis

by pseudocitrus



Series: Teacher/Student Human AU [7]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, First Time, Mutual Pining, Smut, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 01:57:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8471152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: Their unexpected reunion.





	

**Author's Note:**

> october has been a long loooong month for me....i spent it basically trying to hammer this out :'D
> 
> this is my birthday present for nei, originator of teacher/student au ////
> 
> it's also pure!! cheesecake!!!
> 
> i know that some have been wondering about the "reunion" part of this au for a while~ it took me a long time to finally think of something. i hope you enjoy it :')
> 
> & i hope you're having a good day!!

She inhales, and exhales, deeply.

It’s hard for Touka to breathe, sometimes. No big deal. It’s probably just stress, just the weight of various things in her life that make her feel like her chest is crammed full of useless objects, like there isn’t enough space for her lungs to expand.

_I’m fine_ , she tells herself, firmly. _I’m just fine_.

Her huge thesis, whose first draft is due in the middle of the quarter, would probably count as her number one major stressor. The rest of the things in her life are really going just fine.

_Just fine_!

For example. She was accepted into graduate school. Then, in a stroke of luck and skill, she actually got the job position she wanted in the new literature offices, as an assistant, and it’s the perfect job for her first quarter. The hours are flexible enough to allow time for classes and studies. The pay, along with her stipend, covers textbooks as well as any other books that might catch her eye. And…

The door to the lounge area opens. Despite herself, despite the fact that she’s been working here for at least two weeks now, Touka feels her pulse quicken. She keeps herself faced toward the coffee machine as she speaks.

“Good morning, Sensei.”

“Good morning,” Sasaki replies. “How are you doing, Kirishima-san?”

“Good” Touka says evenly. She steels herself, and turns. “And you, Sensei?”

“Good,” he answers.

They don’t meet each other’s eyes. But Touka holds out one of the two mugs of coffee she’s holding, and Sasaki takes it.

As he nods to her and leaves for his office, Touka inhales, and exhales, deeply.

:::

_I should quit._

That’s what one part of her says, sometimes, in the very quiet parts of the morning, before anyone else is on campus.

_Why the hell should I quit?_ the other part demands furiously. _I had this job first!_

It isn’t _her_ fault that the administration on, of all people, _Sasaki Haise._ Her hire date came _first._ She was already happily settling in when she turned around one day and almost had a heart attack at the sight of him standing at the door, staring at her.

“Sensei?” she’d gasped, and then laughed, at her own stupid stupidity. There was no way.

But, rather than vanishing from sight like any hallucination would, Sasaki had turned without a word. The door opened, and shut.

He didn’t return that day.

But he did the next.

And the one after.

:::

Sometimes, it’s easy to tell herself that her feelings waned. After all, it’s been _years_. She’s changed so much that sometimes she looks back at the immature idiot she used to be, fighting and screaming and belligerence all, and it gives her a special sort of pain to think, _That was me._

The Touka that shamelessly, loyally made coffee every morning and carried it all the way from the cafe to school — that read all his favorite books until they became her favorites too — that confessed to her own teacher in an empty high school classroom — that sobbed helpless tears in front of her brother and Yoriko and then refused to speak any word about _him_ the instant that she set foot on Kamii —

That Touka is…gone.

:::

Surely Sensei knows it too, right?

Now that she’s older, closer to the age he used to be, she understands perfectly how awkward it must have been, to have a _student_ fall in — have a huge crush on him. Sensei is so good at reading into things; probably, Touka’s feelings were transparent from the very beginning. Most likely, that was the reason why he had transferred in the first place.

(Not that she’s spent time thinking about that.)

(…not _that_ much time.)

:::

Touka is supposed to be a teacher’s assistant, helping to read papers and do research and handle whatever administrative extras that the teacher doesn’t want to do themselves. Part of the tasks, she had been promised, would involve arranging small lectures.

But, it’s been a month since she started, and Sasaki has barely spoken to her.

_It’s fine,_ part of her mutters. _I have more time this way. I can work on all my projects. I can even write up my whole thesis draft this way, way before it’s due. I need the time. It’s a big assignment. This is fine._

_This is NOT fine,_ the other part snaps. _You’re supposed to be getting work experience. What’s he thinking?_

It's already late evening and still not a single instruction from him, much less a glance in her direction.

_There’s no way he still thinks you’re some disillusioned little girl, right?_ Her lips purse. _Does he not trust you to handle anything?_

Touka grits her teeth. She musters her courage, and then bursts into Sasaki’s office.

“Sensei,” she starts furiously, and then stops. For one moment, her heart skips. _SENSEI IS —_

_Sleeping,_ she realizes with relief. Not dead. Just sleeping. On his desk.

Idiot.

His face is partially buried in his crossed arms; she can still see his eyelashes, fine and long. His fingers are loosely curled, and his brow, even in sleep, slightly wrinkled. Beneath him are a variety of papers: essays, forms, syllabi, reports, marked-up printouts. Touka recognizes at least some of these as required for the next day’s class, and sighs.

As expected of Sensei. He’s always trying to do too much.

_And would rather pass out on top of his work than trust me with anything,_ a voice grumbles.

Well, she’ll show him.

It’s surprisingly easy to ease everything out from under him. She finds his coat, and drapes it over him, and when she’s done sorting through the papers, she arranges them in neat piles in front of him.

At the end of it, she’s filled with a particular satisfaction.

_It’s not for him,_ she tells herself, quietly shutting the door. _This is my job._

When she checks the next morning for him, his desk is empty, bare both of him as well as all the papers that he needed for the morning class she knows is on his schedule. Later, when she hears him enter the offices, she also hears him head in her direction. His knuckles rap softly on the frame of her door.

“Yes?” she calls, and Sasaki approaches, scratching his head.

“Good morning.” He pauses. “Thank you…for your help. Earlier.”

His voice is formal, almost plaintive. Like he’s apologizing to some stranger he barely knows.

She’d punch him if she was sure it didn’t violate some kind of code.

“I’m your assistant, Sensei,” Touka replies flatly. “Please stop taking on unnecessary hardships and allow me to help you, or else everyone is going to suffer for it. Especially the people you’re supposed to be teaching.”

Though her voice is pointed, she can feel her breath running out much too quickly. She doesn’t look at him until he lags in responding to her, and then she glares up impatiently.

He’s —

Smiling.

“Right,” he replies.

_“Right,” he says, beaming up at her over a book. “You got it.”_

_“Right,” he says, handing her her report. “You passed. See? You can do it.”_

_“That’s right, that's right,” he laughs, helplessly. “I never thought about it that way.” He laughs for almost two minutes straight, and at the end chokes out, “Thank you, Touka-chan.”_

“Thank you, Kirishima-san,” Sensei says, and suddenly, Touka can’t stop herself. Some tiny poorly-mended seam somewhere on the left side of her chest pops.

“Sensei,” she says. “Everything — is in the past, right?”

She can feel his startled look on her; she doesn’t dare meet it.

_You’re an idiot,_ she’s prepared to hear. _How could you expect me to forget something so ridiculous? How would it be possible at all?_

But maybe — just — maybe —

“Of course.”

She manages to look up, and sees Sensei smiling at her, kindly. He’s scratching his face.

“Of course it’s all in the past.”

Touka exhales, slow, releasing all her pent-up breath. She smiles at him, brightly, and Sen — _Sasaki_ — returns it.

:::

It’s…a relief.

_You don’t need to think about it anymore,_ she tells herself. _It’s in the past._

No need to worry if he’s judging her for the stupid girl she was — it’s in the past, he doesn’t care about it. She can just focus on her work.

And she does. Their conversation, though small, smoothed everything. They chat together in the morning, quietly, at first, about the weather — then, about books — then, about their favorite and less favorite students, upcoming assignments and lectures, papers, meetings, the possibility of conferences. They grade, separately, and then side-by-side, with emptied mugs stacking precariously on one shelf that’s become dedicated to the purpose.

“Are you sure you have time for this?” Sasaki asks. “What about your thesis?”

“It’s fine,” Touka says, dragging her chair once more to Sasaki’s desk. “I work on it when I get home. Besides, this needs to get done.”

Her chair starts to remain beside Sasaki’s desk, soon accompanied by her computer and pens and pencils and other things necessary for her everyday responsibilities. They work and work and work, without complaint, burning the late night into the early morning before they even know it, sometimes until they’re speechless with exhaustion, and sometimes until they’re delirious with it, laughing at spelling errors and poorly-worded sentences that, in the company of any other person, wouldn’t be funny enough to illicit so much as a strained smile.

“Don’t let these inspire your thesis, Kirishima-san,” Sasaki tells her, as he locks up the office, and Touka huffs at him.

“How’s it going, by the way?” he asks. When they head home for the day, there’s some distance they go together before going their separate ways, and they always walk it side-by-side. This time, they’ve left relatively early; the setting sun tints everything with deep gold.

“It’s good,” Touka says carefully.

“That’s amazing,” Sasaki says. “To be honest, I’m impressed. I don’t know how you have time to work on these things with me _and_ do your work at the same time.” Sasaki pauses. “If you ever need a night off —”

“I’ll let you know,” Touka says. “I know, Sasaki-sensei, I know. Stop pestering me about it.”

He smiles at her. “Alright. I really do appreciate all your hard work.”

He really does seem happy about it. She coughs and keeps her face carefully forward. “It’s not hard work at all. I enjoy it.”

“Ah…good. Good.”

They’re quiet then, until they reach the intersection where Touka leaves to take the train, and Sasaki leaves to complete the walk to his apartment. They turn toward each other.

“Goodnight, Kirishima-san,” Sasaki-sensei says, to which Touka replies, “Goodnight.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Touka says, to which Sasaki-sensei replies, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

_Don’t think about it anymore,_ Touka tells herself. _It’s in the past._

On the train, she closes her eyes, and inhales deeply.

That morning, Sasaki made her coffee, again, and the handle of the mug had been warm from his grip. She can still taste the peculiar sweetness of his brewing method, can still feel the numbness on her tongue where she’d burned it in her hurry to sip. And their hands had brushed today, again, a little longer than usual, first in his office and then again, on their walk. For a while their hands had swung in unison and it would have taken no effort at all on Touka’s part to move the last millimeter needed to grasp one of his fingers with one of hers.

What would he have done?

Touka’s hands fumble on the lock of her apartment. She walks in, and heads straight to her desk, cluttered with her computer and thesis materials. Already her heart is racing, looking over all of them — the books, dog-eared and piled everywhere — the pencils, all sharpened — and, finally, her thesis document, the first thing that shows when her computer opens. It’s still perfectly blank.

She sits down, and sighs.

_Focus,_ she urges herself, and, as usual, her mind does, eagerly.

_What would he have done?_

Pushed her away, probably. Given her a look of horror. Found some way to fire her, and refused to speak or look at her again.

But…but maybe…what if…he didn’t? Her desperate imagination supplies it all, shameless. A single finger of hers curls, around a single finger of his. He stiffens — but — instead of pulling away, his hand — turns. Their palms meet; their fingers intertwine. His hand is soft against her own hand, or against her cheek, or against her shivery waist. He draws her against him, and she follows, sometimes into his lap at the office, sometimes into his bed in his apartment, which she has never seen but which she imagines looks just like the one that he had when they first met. And then he opens his mouth close to her skin, and whispers.

_“Touka. Touka. I lo —”_

Touka grits her teeth. _Stupid!_

She shoves the thoughts aside, with fury. She stares at her computer screen, willing herself to work, begging.

_You know what to do,_ she thinks. _Do it._

But her stifled mind remains as blank as the document in front of her.

:::

She knows what she should do. She _knows_.

But she…but she…

Surely it would be fine to…for just a little longer…

_Soon_ , she tells herself, _I’ll do it soon,_ but _soon_ moves further and further away.

It’s just so easy. To say “good morning” to him just one more morning. To laugh with him just one more day. To say “goodnight” to him just one more night.

It would have been the easiest thing, to let it just go on forever.

But one morning, he bursts into the offices, late, and out of breath. The door slams open with such force that Touka almost drops his mug of coffee. Sasaki is panting, like he ran all the way here.

“ _Tou_ —” he gasps, and Touka feels the back of her neck flare, and Sasaki shakes his head, vehement.

“Kirishima-san,” he says. “I just heard.”

Touka’s heart catches. That’s impossible, she never told _anyone,_ there’s no way he could have —

“Kirishima-san,” Sasaki says, and now he sounds pained, and Touka sets the mugs down. Her throat is dry.

“I’m sorry,” Touka manages, and then she stops, because Sasaki has just said the exact same thing.

“H-huh?” Touka says. “ _You?_ ”

“I — I just heard. That you didn’t turn in your thesis draft.”

Touka reddens. “I will next week,” she says. “It’s fine if it’s a little late. Anyway, it’s none of your business.”

“Have you started it at all?” Sasaki asks, and when Touka hesitates and then says, “Of course I have,” Sasaki grimaces, in the exact same way he did when Touka lied about reading her assigned chapters. He swallows, looks away from her.

“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Sasaki says. “I’ve…I’ve been asking too much of you.”

“Sensei, it’s not that at all,” Touka protests, “it has nothing to do with you,” but her voice sounds weak even to herself.

“It’s alright. I’ve decided,” Sasaki says. He heads for the door, and for one instant she can see it already: him opening it, him leaving, him never coming back.

“ _Sensei,_ ” Touka shouts, but he doesn’t open the door. Instead, he locks it, and turns back to her.

“You don’t have class today, right? I don’t either. I canceled all of mine,” he says.

“You — _what_? You can’t just —”

“I’m sick,” Sasaki says, and coughs, weakly. He smiles when Touka laughs at him, and then approaches her and clasps her shoulders.

His grip is hot. She stiffens beneath it, holds her breath, and can’t look away when he says, “Write your thesis. I’ll help.”

:::

Nothing she can say will dissuade him. He sweeps everything off his desk and has her sit in his own chair, which admittedly is much more comfortable than her own. She gingerly arranges her computer in front of her.

“Open up your current draft,” he tells her, and Touka does it, sheepish. The past day’s progression has included a header with her name on it, and nothing else.

“That’s fine,” Sasaki says before Touka can say anything. “Do you know what you want to write about?”

Touka grimaces. “I was thinking about Takatsuki Sen,” she admits quietly. “A sort of…in-depth review. Connecting…you know. Various themes together. That thing we were talking about the other day, about the narrative that runs through all the stories, how it’s all connected.”

“That’s perfect!” Sasaki says. “You know all about that!”

He knows her so well. Or maybe has a lot of unwarranted faith in her. Either way, Touka reddens. “M-maybe. But it’s totally different from writing it out.”

“It’s fine,” Sasaki says. He sits across from her. “I’ll help you.”

_“It’s fine,” Sasaki says, sitting across from her. “I’ll help you. You can do it.”_

“You can do it,” Sasaki says, “I know it,” and Touka looks down at her computer. She takes a long, deep breath.

For the first time in a long while, she feels like it really might be possible.

“Alright,” she decides. “Let’s begin.”

:::

Still. Even if it’s possible…

…it takes a really, really, _really_ long time.

“Coffee?” Sasaki asks, or else asks, “How’s it going?” to which Touka responds with nods and grimaces.

“Okay,” he laughs, “what are you thinking,” and no matter how deeply tangled she is in her own thoughts, he always carefully, steadily unwinds her.

“Why would you draw that connection?”

“What’s an example of that second assertion?”

“And why do you think _that_?”

There are long hours that trudge past without either of them saying anything at all, the silences broken only by Touka’s typing and Sasaki’s responding diligently to get-well wishes but nothing else.

“I need to rest,” Sasaki says seriously as he puts his phone away, and Touka nods back at him, concealing her guilty delight. At least for today, all of his attention is hers; she only needs to look up to get it. At some point, at her request, she hands him her apartment keys and he goes to retrieve her books while she labors on. When he returns, it’s with lunch: a plastic bag filled with a couple rice balls and small sandwiches and apples cut into rabbit shapes.

“Where did you get these?” Touka asks, practically mid-bite, and Sasaki beams.

“You like it?”

“Yeah, it’s…” She tries to tamper her enthusiasm into something that isn’t embarrassing. “It’s really good.”

“Well, you’re the one to thank,” Sasaki says. “I made it out of what you had in your kitchen.”

Touka is so shocked she almost lets her mouth hang open. “You — made it in _my_ —”

“I hope that’s fine,” Sasaki says quickly. Touka stares down at her half-eaten rabbit-shaped apple slice. It does certainly look like it came from the apples she got recently. But she never would have expected that it, or her boring leftover rice, would taste this good.

That Sasaki spent more than the barest amount of time in _her_ apartment…quietly slicing and molding, carefully making the food she’s putting in her mouth…

“Of course it’s fine,” Touka manages to say. “It’s…it’s really good.”

Sasaki smiles at her. “I’m glad.”

Touka looks down. Arranged out on the table now are her books, some of them with spines so worn they’re illegible. What did Sensei think, gathering them up? Did he figure out that some of these are the same copies that they used _back then_? She nudges them aside until she can even see the most recent one, the one that has his name penciled lightly on the inside cover.

There’s a strange pause, then. Sasaki coughs.

“Well…eat quickly and get back to it. Don’t lose your momentum,” he tells her, and Touka nods. After a couple last bites, she’s back to it.

:::

Probably, Sasaki imagined that she really would be able to finish a weeks’ worth of work in a single day. Every time he senses her energy flag, he whips her with encouragements and coffee and so it is that, despite the fact that her fingers are numb and her eyes are raw with the effort of staying awake and suppressing helpless tears of frustration, almost twenty-four hours later, she reaches across the desk.

“Sensei…” she starts, and then coughs, clearing her throat. Her voice is hoarse. “Sensei.”

Her tired fingers stroke his hair until he stirs. He looks up at her, blinking quickly, straightening his glasses. He looks like he has no idea where he is.

“Kirishima-san?” he asks. “Oh, sorry, I…”

But she shakes her head.

“I’m finished,” she whispers, because she doesn't trust her voice to go any louder, and Sasaki straightens.

“Really?”

“R…eally.”

“Congratulations!” That smile again. Touka winces at his volume. “I knew you could do it. Did you turn it in? What do you think? How did you wrap it up?”

“I’m going to pass out,” Touka croaks. Despite the ridiculous amount of coffee she drank, despite the fact that her limbs feel jerky with caffeine, her eyelids are dropping, and her wrung-out brain feels as heavy as a boulder.

“O-oh — Kirishima-san —”

It’s no use. Her head drops onto her arms. When Sasaki tries to get her to move her body growls at him, but he persists, and she’s too weak to do anything about it.

She’s helpless to what follows then, dreams which she is unable fight the way she normally can — the feeling of his warm body against hers — the clench of her arms over his shoulders — the smell of the nape of his neck, the caress of his hairs against her face. She squeezes tighter against a flush of cold air against her body, turns her face away from the light of the lamp that glows outside the office. There’s the sound of a single pair of steps on pavement, and then on stairs. Doors open and shut.

She feels a bed beneath her, which feels heavenly. She feels a soft blanket, and an even softer pillow.

“Just rest,” she hears. “You did well.”

And even as her mind fades —

Maybe it’s just her imagination, again, shameless.

But she could have sworn that he whispered, “ _Touka._ ”

:::

She wakes up not realizing it. For a long while she lies there, convinced that this is all a dream. The gold light coming in through the window — the sound of Sensei sipping and turning book pages — the smell of coffee but, even stronger than that, _his_ scent, fresh and clean, encompassing, a smell that makes her think of books and papers and the glint of his glasses when he’s not looking at her and the firmness of his back and countless daydreams that really have no business ever being entertained by her.

Despite the agony of the previous day, she feels rested and warm and cozy and…nice.

Really nice.

_I want to wake up like this all the time._

She closes her eyes, trying to absorb it all, trying to carry it into her chest, where she’ll never forget it. She tucks it carefully beside study sessions and smiles that she’s taken out and polished so much they still have the luster they had when she put them away years ago.

How could she have possibly tried to convince herself she had left it all in the past?

She inhales deeply. Exhales deeply.

This all only happened because she was such an idiot.

_You know what to do._

“Kirishima-san,” Sasaki says as she trods into the kitchen. “Good morning. Or rather,” he says, glancing at the clock, “good evening.”

“Good evening, Sensei,” she murmurs.

“I hope you slept well?”

“Yeah…really well.” She rubs her hair, grips her arms. She can’t bring herself to look at him. “Thank you. It must have been. Um. A huge trouble for you.”

“It’s no problem at all.”

Touka sucks in a breath. “ _Thank you_ ,” she says, more empathically. “For everything, I mean. I, um…couldn't have done it without you. Any of this.”

“What are you talking about?” Sasaki makes a smile lopsided with kindness. “Of course you could have.”

Well…of course. He’s been saying stuff like that from the very beginning. That last day of him telling her she could go it alone, without him, is stored away with her too, involuntary, but just as knife-bright. Suddenly, she feels her eyes welling with tears.

How could she have possibly tried to convince herself she had left it all in the past? How could she have possibly hoped that he would?

Sasaki, thankfully, doesn't notice. “Are you hungry?” he asks. “We could probably go eat something. If anyone sees us I’ll just say that I’m feeling better and wanted to catch up with you. Or, if you’re too tired to go out, I can make you something. Anything you want.”

_One last time,_ something inside her begs. _One last time together. And then that’s it._

:::

Touka shuts her eyes. It’s not _one more time_ she wants. It’s _every time._

And she will miserably thirst for droplets of it until the end of her days, if she let herself.

“I quit,” she whispers.

Sasaki turns to her. “What?”

“I quit,” she makes herself say, louder. She looks up at him and tries to make some kind of tranquil smile, but instead the sight of him turns blurry immediately, and she puts a hand over her mouth to cover the grotesque writhing of it.

“You…what?” His eyes are wide. “What happened? Are you alright, Kirishima-san?”

_Kirishima-san, Kirishima-san, Kirishima-san._

“I’m sorry, S-Sensei,” Touka stammers. “I can’t…I can’t work with you anymore. Or see you again. I'm sorry.”

Her coat is hanging off a chair. She retrieves it, then turns and starts toward the doorway as she puts it on. He races after her.

“Kirishima — Kirishima, wait — you don’t have to —” He stops, collects himself. “I-is it because I brought you here? I’m — I’m sorry, I knew it was a bad idea, but you looked so tired, I just didn't want you to —”

“It’s n-not that,” Touka tells him, trying to find her shoes, “please don’t worry about —”

“Then, is it that you were overworked? I-it won’t happen again. I knew already you were overburdened, but I just wanted — it was selfish of me in the first place to demand so much of your time, but it won’t ever —”

“It’s not that,” Touka says, wiping her eyes furiously. Where are her shoes? “It’s not your fault at all, Sasaki-sensei, so please — just — I just can’t —”

_Fuck._ She’s going to fall apart right here, if she doesn't leave, she’ll turn into a sobbing ball and never again back into a person, she finally finds her shoes and shoves her feet into them and the instant that she stands, Sasaki grabs her hand, and it’s by no means rough but it’s enough to paralyze her.

“Kirishima-san,” Sasaki whispers. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’ll do anything. You don’t need to quit. Don’t.”

She turns. The tears are streaming down her cheeks, now. It’s too late for her to hide anything.

“I’m quitting, Sensei,” she cries. “I’m s-sorry. It’s not your fault, I just — I — I can’t see you anymore. I can’t stand it, anymore. But it's not you. It’s me, I just — I couldn't do it after all. I thought maybe I could just be…around you…and it would be fine. But it’s no use. I can’t.”

Sasaki is stricken. “Why?” he asks, and finally, it escapes.

“Because…I…love you. I love you, Sensei. I love you so much, even now. I don’t know that I ever stopped. I…” She chokes. “I’m sorry.”

:::

She turns. She doesn't want to hear his response, hear his apologies and condolences, she wants to be far away and alone and in her own cold bed to lick her wounds. But she isn’t fast enough to evade his response.

“I love you, too.”

Her hand freezes. She turns her head. “Wh…what?”

Sasaki is standing there, arms at his sides. His eyes are glassy, and he closes them.

“I love you.” His voice is pained. “I love you…so much…even now. I don’t…I don’t know that…I ever stopped.”

He chokes. “I’m sorry.”

:::

Their eyes meet.

She sees it, then — all those years compressed into a single instant, just like all the tragedies they read together. Understanding dawns on her, all the knotted reins of her life unraveling to reveal they were all a single piece.

Their hands and shoulders brushing. His eyes wide as they saw her in his office that first time. Their last meeting before this job, the book handed to her, the farewell more curt than the one he gave her after she confessed.

The real reason he left. The reality of those years she thought she spent wishing for him on her own. And all that distance, all the words and time they didn't spend together, needless.

Well. Maybe it wasn't needless. Maybe back then it really wouldn’t have worked between them; maybe no amount of effort or emotion would have bridged the chasms between them.

But now.

:::

Her hand drops from the doorknob. She turns toward him fully.

“Touka,” Sasaki whispers, and it sounds pleading, and for the first time she hears him clearly, knows what it is that he’s asking for isn’t forgiveness or reconsideration but something else that she has been longing to give him for years. She lunges for him, almost leaps, wraps her arms around him with her heels scraping the floor of his entryway. So much time has passed between them that she doesn't dare let any of it get in the way now, just presses her face, tear-soaked and flushed, to his.

Their lips meet, just barely, and then again, deeper, hyphenated by a shock of breath. His mouth is hot and soft and sends a shine through her, makes her legs weak, and Sasaki’s embraces her, at first to steady her and then to clutch her body against his.

They tilt, sway, stumble, together — his back collides against the entryway wall — they’re still kissing, tasting each other as desperately as air, Touka barely allowing herself pause, lest something else, some other errant insecurity or worry, get in between them. She kicks off her shoes and the heels slide and smack against the wall. Sasaki holds her face and his mouth opens wider, his tongue starts to move delicately against hers, and her body starts to heat, face first, then neck, then stomach, then —

_Ah —_

This — this —

Isn’t anything like she imagined. There was no way she could have imagined this — how roughly Sasaki is capable of gripping her — how hungrily his hooded eyes regard her behind half-steamed glasses — the raw and low noise that comes out of him and the harsh shudder when her tongue flicks back against his.

His hands are sliding beneath her coat; she moves accordingly, and shrugs it off carelessly onto the floor, one sleeve draping over scattered shoes. She slides her whole body against his, unable to get close enough for her liking, and one of his knees slips between her legs, parting them, slightly. Her face flares, sure that he can feel the heat of her there. His fingers drift lower across her back, and then pause.

Their eyes open.

“I want to,” Touka says. She’s surprised to hear it come out in a gasp. Sasaki swallows and inhales, slowly.

“A-are…are you —”

“I’m sure,” Touka says, and kisses him. To her surprise and delight, the firmness of his expression melts into something pliant and wanting, and she kisses him, again, this time daring the crook of his throat, which causes him to hiss out a breath, causes his nails to dig into her back.

“I want to, Sensei,” she whispers, between more kisses, “I’ve wanted to for a long, long, long, _long_ time,” and he trembles and reddens and, heady with ridiculous courage, Touka presses her palm between their bodies, just beneath his belly, and then lower, lower, until she feels his hardness, can almost feel it growing and nudging into her hand as she ventures a lick into the line of his throat.

Her breath catches, with a thrill, and with just a flicker of uncertainty. Before she can do anything more, he clenches her hand. For a moment she thinks he’s lost his nerve, but he starts pulling her back into the apartment. Once she realizes what he’s doing, she follows, and they make it that much more quickly to his bed, still mussed from when she slept in it. To her surprise, he pushes her onto it, back to the mattress, and then crawls over her.

“Sen —” she gasps, but now it's him that makes her speechless, now it's him framing her head with his arms and lavishing her with kisses, more than she can count, more and more potent than she can possibly keep and store all inside her. He nuzzles beneath her chin and the little suckles he leaves on her skin make her release a noise she never knew she could make, a needy moan that makes him find her fingers and arrange them over her head and squeeze them, affectionate, as he continues.

:::

It’s nothing like she imagined. It’s better, and more unexpected, and even more natural. His weight rises leans against her and her legs part around him like she planned it from the beginning. His lips drag luxuriously against her collarbone and between her breasts and both their hands work to unbutton her and once she’s exposed to him, all lace and ( _Embarrassing_ ) rabbit patterns, he reaches below her back and unclasps her bra with such expertise that she swallows.

Sensei…Sensei is really already — pretty good at this —

She fights the urge to cross her hands over her chest, quivers and finds another moan escaping her when his hands rest on her breasts, covering them completely. The contact is — so — _warm_. Not — unpleasant, but — so — _near_. Like he might as well be reaching into her ribcage.

“Touka?” he calls, and Touka breathes.

“I like it,” she tells him, “keep going,” and his fingers encircle her nipples, which are starting to raise into points, as if her body were cold rather than hot beyond measure, and only getting hotter when he tips a nipple into his mouth and sucks it. Now that — _that_ — feels —

“So good,” Touka gasps, “that’s good, that's good, that’s so, so,” and she finds herself writhing as he moves to her other nipple, feels her voice crumpling into something like a whine, feels her fingers coil into his hair and pull, hungrily.

:::

The sound of his mouth working against her is embarrassing, but he pauses only initiate their frantic maneuver out of the most troublesome of their clothing, pants and skirt and tights and — a-and — yeah — underwear too. Touka’s chest tightens as Sasaki rests his body against her again, and this time the heat between them seems truly intimate. She keeps her eyes trained up to his as her hand eases down and finds his erection, both hard and strangely velvet. He sighs and kisses her and, encouraged, she reaches lower, trying to find his base, trying to really gauge the size of him.

_Big,_ she thinks, _m-maybe, too big,_ but his hips are grinding against her now, and her body is starting to feel filled with something that’s like cottonballs, and fire, and lightning. Sasaki dips a finger into his mouth and Touka holds her breath as he reaches down to her and unerringly finds her clit.

Her body arches against him and he kisses her throat as he strokes. The saliva wasn’t needed; she’s wet, _really_ wet, so wet that she almost wants to apologize for it, but his finger eases inside of her and out and then inside again, caressing her clit with every motion, and she finds that she can’t say much of anything, except, over and over, _Sensei,_ and, _please._

But he takes his time. He adds a second finger, and then a third, hooking them a little, still teasing her, until her bangs are already plastered to her forehead with sweat, and his hair is hanging in tapers. When he finally kneels up to hold himself up against her slit, she spreads her legs as wide as she can, and he penetrates.

It’s one swift motion. His fingers were nothing, but his cock inside her, feels s-so, huge, so _deep_ — she cries out, and he stills, immediately.

“What’s…” he starts, but he realizes, mid-sentence.

“You’ve never…y-you’re still…?”

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“Y-you — you should have mentioned —“

“It’s okay,” she hisses, but the instant that he tries to move himself out of her, she hisses again, this time in pain. Sasaki stops.

They breathe.

:::

_I’m sorry,_ Touka starts to say, but perhaps sensing it, Sasaki stops her, with a kiss. He licks his fingers, then reaches and finds her clit again. Still embedded, still kissing her, he starts to fondle her, nudging, circling, circling. The pain flittering at his entrance starts to wither, and then to bloom into something else. Her breathlessness gets even more pronounced; her body starts to roll against him, on its own.

“Sensei,” she moans, “ _aah_ — Sensei, I — I — really like —”

“I know,” he whispers back. “I can feel it.”

Her muscles are spasming, squeezing him, helplessly. She circles her arms around him, twists one leg to help draw him nearer, pushes her forehead against his body and tries in vain to buck faster. He’s moving, only barely, but the sensation of his light thrusting going from  _inside her_  and _further in_ — the steady, dancing pressure of his hand — his hand and his smell and his kiss on her hair and his whisper of “ _Touka, Touka_ ” — some part of all this, or maybe all of it, makes all the blood rise up in her like a tidal wave.

“I-I’m co—” Touka starts to gasp, and then she only cries out, and spasms, kicking out, digging in, all her muscles tensing and then releasing, exquisite. In the electric haze of it she can feel Sasaki trembling and moaning above her, can feel him thrust both gently and urgently into her body, which feels awake, yawning to receive him.

They lie against each other, spent, beyond words. With the storm of the moment passed, the air seems almost foreign to her, like the atmosphere of a different planet. When Sasaki carefully withdraws from her, it’s much colder than she remembers.

“Are you alright?” Sasaki asks, softly.

“Yeah,” Touka replies. “I’m…fine.”

She folds her arms around herself, and Sasaki embraces her, until warmth returns, not just to her skin but to the thing inside of her that seems to be beating anew. She breathes in, and out, and, blinks. Her chest feels clean, and clear — like all the invisible weights she carried there were blown out of it — like it was swept clean. There’s space in her, despite the fact that even now her heart feels like it’s full. Overflowing.

“I’m sick,” Touka says suddenly, and Sasaki looks at her, with surprise, and then concern.

“Y-you are?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I think I caught what you had.”

His eyes light with understanding.

“That’s too bad,” he says. He works the blanket out from beneath them, and then lays it over them.

“We wouldn’t want to get worse,” he whispers. “So let’s just stay in and rest tomorrow.”

Touka answers with a smile. It’s dark out; when Sasaki turns out the lights, only streetlights filter through the window. They tangle themselves together, and before her consciousness fades, Touka thinks, _Tomorrow. And tomorrow after that. And tomorrow after that_.

She won’t always be skipping class. But even the days that she attends, she knows it will be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much for reading!


End file.
